


In This Church (I Pray To You)

by guardiandevil



Category: Daredevil (TV), Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Grieving Clint Barton, M/M, Post-Episode: s01e08 The Defenders, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 09:28:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28349181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guardiandevil/pseuds/guardiandevil
Summary: Daredevil died when the Midland Circle building collapsed. Clint thinks that he died with him.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Matt Murdock
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	In This Church (I Pray To You)

**Author's Note:**

> This is just constant whump that was probably as painful to write as it is to read. Either way, I wanted to try and write something about how Clint deals with Matt’s ‘death’ at the end of the Defenders. I hope it turned out well and that you guys will like it! :) As usual, feedback is really appreciated.

  
Clint can’t breathe.

He can’t breathe because it feels like there isn’t enough air in the room and- no, there  is no air in the room and Clint _can’t breathe_ _._

Someone’s talking to him over the phone but he can’t hear it over the choked sobs that he doesn’t realise belong to him, too loud and painfully persistent. His eyes stare up at the television in front of him and Clint blinks back tears to focus on the screen- to focus on something,  _anything else._

It’s too much and not enough at the same time and Clint’s phone clatters against the tile floor before he can process that he’s thrown it. The glass smashes and the lit screen is distorted with flashes of green and red but it doesn’t matter because the colours blur together and-  _Christ_ , Clint can’t breathe.

In his panic, Clint barely registers Foggy’s muffled words, crackling down the phone.

“Clint, I’m sorry-“ the lawyer starts, but Clint doesn’t listen to the rest-  _can’t_ listen to the rest, and tears his hearing aids out before Foggy can finish. The phone screen goes black and he doesn’t know if it died or if Foggy hung up but he can’t find it in himself to care.

The room is silent now, but there’s a reporter on the television talking about the collapse of the Midland Circle building and it’s deafening even though he can’t hear it. He wants to tear his eyes away; he doesn’t, eyes clinging to way the reporter’s lips move and hoping they’ll say something about finding new survivors.

He watches for hours. At some point, he stopped being able to cry, so his sobs come out strangled and his cheeks are stained with dry tears that fell until he was dehydrated. His heart aches and Clint thinks with a sad laugh that Matthew Murdock  _finally_ broke his heart. He’d expected it one day, but not like this-  _never_ like this.

Matt was never supposed to die and Clint struggles to believe that he could have. He struggles to believe it because he promised him forever and this  _isn’t_ forever but in fact quite the opposite.

A voice in the back of his head tells Clint that Matt loved him until death and that  _is_ forever but it’s not Clint’s forever and that makes him want to rip his hair out. His fingers tangle in the strands and tug - it hurts but not enough because Matt’s  dead and nothing could ever hurt more.

He’s not sure how long he’s sat in front of the television but his legs gave out hours ago and now his knees ache and his heart aches too and Clint can only wish it didn’t.

His wishes don’t work so he bows his head and prays to a God he doesn’t believe in but knows that Matt did. Religion was Matt’s life and Clint thinks that maybe it could save him.

If there is a God, he decides, he must be as deaf as him because his prayers go unheard and Matt is still dead and Clint still can’t breathe and  _oh God_ , is he dying too?

He almost wishes he was and tries to shake away the thoughts of how selfish that makes him, because his boyfriend is _dead_ beneath a building and he’s _alive_ , so how does he have any right to feel jealous? He does, though; he’s jealous and he’s so, so selfish but he stops caring and it’s all that he has left because the world took everything from him.

Though he doesn’t know how, Clint learns to breathe through the lack of air in the room and stumbles away from the television and away from his phone.

He locks himself in his room for days and forgets that anyone else exists because the only person who matters is gone, so it’s almost like no one does. He forgets and he forgets and he forgets until Natasha bypasses Friday’s security measures to drag him from his room.

Clint curses Stark and his stupid AIs in the hopes that it makes him feel better.

It doesn’t; nothing does and that’s okay even though it _isn’t really_.

His friends stare at him when Clint walks past. They smile and offer small greetings but he never replies and never looks in their direction. He has too many things on his mind and his lungs are so tight that he can’t breathe let alone speak, so he stays quiet and looks the other way like he knows he should.

There’s a ghost in his room and he sounds like Matt and looks like Matt but Clint’s fingers slip through air when he tries to reach out because Matt is dead and ghosts aren’t real and he’s suddenly so very insane that the only thing that wakes him up in the morning is a figment of his imagination that couldn’t ever be real.

Matt’s gone, Clint thinks when he wakes up alone. His bed is empty and his boyfriend’s ghost isn’t there to fill the space. Matt’s gone and his bed is empty and _Clint can’t breathe again_.

He doesn’t breathe for days, but sits in the shower for hours instead, hoping the too-hot water will drown him if he prays hard enough.

It doesn’t work, but he prays anyway. He prays in the morning and when he’s alone and when he can’t sleep because he doesn’t believe in God but Matt did and he hopes it will bring them together again.

Most days, when his prayers turn to silent whispers, Clint is reminded that there isn’t a God or a religion that could bring Matt back to him. It breaks his heart over and over again and when there is nothing of him left, he realises that life is the only thing keeping them apart.

Clint can’t breathe again, but this time it’s all his fault. His lungs plead for air and he denies them, pursing his lips tightly shut and praying one final time.

It isn’t the final time. He forgets sometimes that his best friend is a spy and it isn’t so easy to outsmart her. He loves Natasha, she knows it and he knows it, but it doesn’t stop him from screaming out that he hates her.

She knows that he doesn’t, Clint knows it too. They don’t mention it, though, because that isn’t how this works.

They don’t mention it at the time and they don’t mention it when she forces him into Clinton Church one Sunday morning and leaves him there alone.

Clint stays through the service and kneels down to pray to Matt’s God. The elderly couple beside him grant him the mercy of pretending not to notice when he cries and whispers out Matt’s name and Clint can only be thankful. 

The church is empty and Clint still can’t bring himself to leave, so he stays where he is and tries not to flinch when Father Lantom places his hand on his shoulder and asks him if he wants to confess.

He wants to refuse but doesn’t and as he sits in the confessional booth and holds his head in his hands, he lets himself cry and tries not to think that Matt might have done the same once, when he was alive.

It doesn’t help and he thinks about it anyway but this time he tells Father Lantom as much and actually listen to the advice he’s given.

I _t_ _ doesn’t help _ but Clint’s trying and knows that Matt would be proud of him for doing so.

He doesn’t want to leave the church but has to, so he returns the next weekend and the week after that, too. Clint doesn’t believe in God but he prays and speaks to the sky because he feels as though someone might be listening, even if he knows they’re not.

It’s not God and it takes Clint a while to realise, but it’s Matt - it’s Matt and it was _always_ Matt, who’s dead and yet so, so beautifully alive when Clint is in church.

It becomes a weekly thing. Clint goes to church every Sunday and prays not to _God_ but to _Matt_ and hopes that the man is listening from the heaven he himself does not believe in.

He’s always the last person to leave at the end of the service, but he doesn’t mind and neither does Father Lantom or Sister Maggie, who holds him when he cries and tells him that Matt loved him dearly.

Clint doesn’t know how she knows this but he believes her regardless and holds onto her words with the remaining pieces of his broken heart.

It didn’t make sense before but he understands it now, because Matthew Murdock is _alive_ in this church even if he’s dead to the world and that’s all Clint needs to know to be able to  _breathe_.

Matt is dead. He’s gone. 

Clint knows this and it hurts him still.

But he can breathe and that’s enough.

Matt is dead.

Clint can  _breathe_. 


End file.
